CASE STUDY

Case Study Scenario: Incorporating Social Media And Social Networks in Healthcare.

Table of Contents

Executive summary1

Introduction2

Review of the Literature and practice3

Impact of Social Media and Networking4

Developing Social Media Strategy5

Benefits and opportunities6

Consumer Social Media Use6

Physician Use of Social Media7

Customer Relationship Management7

Consumer Patient Education8

Health Professional Education and Collaboration8

Potential Obstacles and Adoption Issues9

Social Media Barriers10

Analysis of the Findings10

Conclusions11

Recommendations12

Executive summary

Social Media has grown incredibly in the last decade, and is likely to grow in future as well. The Health care sector has lagged in the adoption of this platform; however, much delay will not be appreciated by the healthcare consumers. Although old adults are not very active on social media, still other age groups are present on it and they need to be tapped proactively in the sector. The social media and networking can be used to collaborate, communicate, collection and sharing of information in the healthcare domain. However, there are potential risk and obstacles like, control of message, Ethical issues, privacy and security issues. These need to be tackled with social media strategy and policy.

Case Study Scenario: Incorporating Social Media and Social Networks in Healthcare.

Introduction

The social networking is basically a process of connecting individuals, groups, and organizations based on their social ties of variable relations. The social media and networking can be used to collaborate, communicate, collection and sharing of information in the healthcare domain. The social media is of great value to healthcare enterprises since it allows the entities to reach stakeholders on a flexible and convenient basis with mass reduction of cost for doing so. According to the stats of Fortune100, 100% of the companies in the Telecommunications, Computers, office equipment, are on Facebook, while only 33% of the food and drug store companies are on Facebook. It is interesting to note that, according to 2010 stats, 0% of the Fortune100 companies in the Healthcare industry, and pharmaceutical managed to make their presence on Facebook. This represents sheer lack of potential channel use for making the services of healthcare reach the consumers (Burson-Marsteller 2009). According to PwC survey of 2011, 43% of CEOs are stating that, they will significantly change their strategies as per the response of customers in the next 3 years; the increasing social media use is a part of that change (IBM, 2011).

The media strategy for Social Media implementation is inevitable. It is necessary to develop, implement, and evaluate periodically the social media strategy and policy. An effective social media strategy defines the goals, needs, objectives, markets, customers, target audience, communication tasks online, social media mix and most of all the measurement criteria to control the process. However, there are potential risk and obstacles. These include the control of message, Ethical issues, and privacy and security issues. The potential barriers include the reimbursement barriers, language/cultural barriers, Return on Investment (ROI) barriers, Regulatory/Legal Barriers, and consumer Barriers. This paper discusses each of this matter with evidence from authentic sources. The social media is growing phenomenon, however its future is debated, its present growing status is unchallenged ...